Sister Kathy – Community Farm Alliance

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My Week on the Farm

August 16, 2017 CFA Admin

By Sister Kathy Curtis

First off, let me clarify that in no way do I consider the week I spent at Four Petal Farm a typical week for a small farmer. Cathy and John Rehmeyer, owners of Four Petal Farm, were able to take a week’s vacation in May because their primary focus is cool weather crops, like brassicas, that they grow all winter. So, when they asked if I could stay at the farm to watch over things, I knew there would be little heavy work to be done. Cathy pointed out that it was a way to get some time away and enjoy the solitude. The fact I live at a monastery and this was a selling point for getting away from home for a week, did not slip by me.

I visited the farm a week before the Rehmeyers were to leave for vacation to get the lowdown on the routine chores that needed to be done and for my own peace of mind. Since I started working around farmers, I have come to recognize and appreciate the hard work that goes into growing the food that I used to take for granted.

I wanted to be sure I was up to the task. So, John Rehmeyer and I walked around the farm. He instructed me on what needed to be done and when and I practiced things like cranking up the high tunnel sides. My main responsibility was making sure the animals were fed and that the high tunnel was watered and the sides opened and closed every day. I felt like I was up to all the tasks, except one. I did not feel comfortable walking up and down the steep hillside twice a day to feed and water the goats. Fortunately, John had a neighbor who was willing to take on that chore.

John left me a simple schedule for the chores that looked something like this: High tunnel: open tunnel sides and door, water as needed, harvest zucchini and summer squash as needed, close at night. Animals: morning feed and water dogs and cats, water rabbits; afternoon feed dogs, rabbits and parakeets and spray iguana. Make sure everyone stays watered. Sounds simple enough, right?

Here’s my journal entries about what happened that week:

Friday, day one: I got to the farm by 9:00am. High tunnel sides were open and Rick (the neighbor) had already fed and watered the goats so I did the rest of the morning feedings and turned on the drip irrigation for the high tunnel. It had to run for about two hours. Then I remembered that the seedlings needed to be watered from overhead which required that I change from drip to hose. I remembered a little too late that you had to turn the water off before changing from drip to hose. I won’t forget that again. I struggled with putting the sides down on the tunnel. Gravity won.

Saturday, day two: I slept well and turned off the 6:30 alarm (after all it was Saturday), so at 7:45 I realized I had work to do. I went to the tunnel first because I didn’t know how hot it would get when the sun hit it with the sides down. Cranking the sides up was not too hard. I noticed I had a bruise from where the handle had hit my arm the night before. I decided that I would probably gain some arm strength this week. The tunnel only needed the drip ran so there were only two trips up to the spigot.

Sunday, day three: I did not want to get up.Then I remembered that dogs, cats and rabbits were depending on me and all those plants in the high tunnel! According to the gizmo in the window, the humidity was 99% and it wasn’t even 10:00. Climbing the hill was getting easier but cranking up the tunnel sides was still hard and bending over to harvest the squash had my back reminding me that my day job was at a desk. One of the hardest things is remembering to change boots when going between the animals and the tunnel to avoid contaminating the produce. And the rabbit house needs to be cleaned out but I think I will wait until the humidity drops and hopefully the odor will too.

Monday, day four: It was cooler today so I cleaned out the rabbit house and that’s how I found out both Rick and I had been feeding the rabbits. No wonder they haven’t been excited to see me. In the high tunnel, I found evidence of squash vine borer this morning while harvesting. According to my research, by the time you see the damage it is too late to stop it. I’m feeling a little anxious today.

Tuesday, day five: I have been watching the upper field to see if it needs water. It has been hot but they are calling for rain tonight so I think it will be OK. There are so many decisions to make. It’s not like at home where we are growing some peppers and tomatoes and if something happens we can just go buy them. These plants are a family’s livelihood. It takes a lot of faith to be a farmer.

Wednesday, day six: There is a rhythm to the day that starts and ends with the dogs. They are the most persistent. I went to Pikeville today to do an interview and raced back to the farm to close up the tunnel and feed everyone before a really bad storm hit. The power went out for a while so I sat on the front step and just watched the mist and the birds.

Thursday, day seven: I am harvesting about three bags a day of squash and zucchini. It is really neat to see the bees wallowing in the pollen in the squash flowers. It’s almost like they are drunk with it. I had to be in Whitesburg this evening so I left the farm about 4:00 after feeding and watering everyone. I had a real problem trying to get the tunnel door shut. I wasn’t expecting on being back until late and knew the deer would see an open door as a gilt edged invitation to supper. After searching with no luck for bungee cords, I ended tying the door shut with my bandana. When I got back to the farm and checked, I was relieved that the door shut with no problem and nothing had suffered from the heat.

Friday, last day: Because both Rick and I both fed the rabbits earlier in the week, the feed was gone. So I decided to go to the local Walmart and buy some rabbit food. After three stops with no luck I finally found some at the Tractor Supply in Paintsville, a round trip of fifty miles.

Walking up the hill to the rabbit house for the last time before returning home, I looked over and there sitting on the steps of an out building were four little kittens. It appears that one reason the cats were so crazy to be fed all week was that one of them was nursing her brood.

Later that afternoon, as I drove out the holler, I stopped to say goodbye to Rick and thank him for all his help. He invited me back anytime to “sit on the new deck a spell”. He reminded me of what is good about country living. The work is hard, the outcome isn’t guaranteed and the pay is minimal at times but the rewards are plentiful. I not only had a bag full of zucchini, I went home with my heart adjusted. Like the dogs resting in the shade, the bees drunk on pollen and the kittens frolicking under the shed, I had stepped back into the rhythm of nature. And found peace and fullness there.

Several weeks have passed since my experience at the Four Petal Farm. I have fallen back into my routine of work, prayer and leisure. As I was writing this piece, the thing I remembered most about my time on the farm was how vital I felt. I had an important role. From making sure the plants and animals were fed and watered to harvesting the squash, my hands were needed. As I sat on the porch, sharing the evening cool with the dogs, I understood the difference between making a living and making a life. Whether growing beets or beef, farming at any level is hard work. In this culture of fast food and faster internet, farming is a lifestyle that has to wait, for the rain, for the harvest, and for the calf to be born. What I hope they don’t have to wait for is our gratitude. When you sit down to your next meal, why not say a prayer of thanks for farmers. Or better yet, the next time you are at the farmers’ market, thank them face to face.

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Four Petal Farm

November 16, 2016 CFA Admin

by Sister Kathy Curtis

Earlier this summer, armed with a printout from MapQuest, a road map of Floyd County and directions from the farm owner, I went looking for Four Petal Farm in Banner Kentucky. After twenty-five minutes of driving back and forth on the two-lane, turning around twice on the “one-lane” and following what appeared to me to be a four-wheeler track, I was ready to declare myself lost when I saw the low tunnels – a sure sign I had found Four Petal Farm, the home of John and Cathy Rehmeyer and their daughters, Vivian and Caroline.

This was actually my third visit to Four Petal Farm but the first in its new location on Akers Branch in Floyd County. Cathy’s first venture into farming was as an urban farmer in the middle of Pikeville on one-tenth of an acre at the top of a hill in the middle of town. It was there where Cathy learned to grow food for her family and later her CSA customer’s all through the winter, using terraces and low tunnels.

Having seen all the work Cathy and John had done in Pikeville, I asked her why they chose to move to a rural farm that had not been in production for several years.

“John and I grew up in rural America” Cathy replied, “and we had childhoods where we just roamed the woods. We wanted that for our kids—the freedom to explore and be outside.” John was raised on a “tractor” farm where they raised hogs, corn and soybeans so vegetable farming was new to him. But after seven years of looking, he found the farm on Akers Branch on the internet.

“It’s not an ideal location for vegetable farming, especially year round vegetable farming like we do.” Cathy told me. “Vegetables need maximum sunlight. Our farm is at the head of the hollow with steep slopes on both sides. In the summer the sun doesn’t hit the first bit of garden until 9:30 and leaves it by 4:40. At it gets even less in the winter. And then there was the question of soil quality. It was a real leap of faith.”

As we walked the property, Cathy talked more about the soil quality. “It’s like a box of chocolates, ‘cuz you don’t know what you are going to get” she remarked with a grin pointing out spots with sand and right next to it a big clump of clay. There were even chunks of coal and what looked like concrete.

“We are pretty sure this is fill” she said. “There is a gas well up above us and we think that the former owners of the property allowed them to dump fill here to create “flat land”. We had a friend come out with his tractor and tiller and when he got to this part he just left it alone.” Cathy has planted that section in sorghum sudan grass to help break up the compaction and add nutrients so that some day that section of the field can be used too.

Soil quality is a topic Cathy never tires of talking about. “The farm had been hay cropped for decades and the soil was just worn out. When we first started working the field, we walked it one day after being freshly tilled and found one measly earthworm in the entire bottom. I knew it was going to be a challenge even without a soil test.” Now, after only one year, there are earthworms all over the place.

As we walked around the farm, Cathy’s daughters showed me their rabbits, Eliza and Henry. (Apparently the girls had just seen My Fair Lady prior to getting the rabbits.) I asked the girls more about the rabbits and found out they were New Zealand Reds and they were “delicious”. As a city girl, that comment took me by surprise until I realized Cathy and John were raising their children to understand where their food comes from and that includes meat too. There are also goats on the farm who apparently a source of humor to the girls, especially when they “eat mommy’s hat” and ducks that take a lot of care.

As we walked, Vivian, the eldest showed me the Earth Tone field corn, a beautiful “Indian corn” with blue, brown and green kernels that she was growing. She explained that “field corn was not what you eat on the cob but you have to let it dry out and then you grind it for meal to make cornbread.” She got the seed from the Pikeville Seed Swap and would be saving some of the kernels for next year’s garden and some to swap. The rest was going to be made into cornbread for Thanksgiving.

Vivian also showed me her most favorite bean, “Aunt Bets” that she got from the famous Kentucky bean saver, Bill Best. “If you let them get really big inside, they are really tender and they taste really good,“ Vivian said with a grin. And then she and I ate some right off the vine.

Back at the farm house, I asked Cathy why she was farming. “To make money” was her immediate response. “John is our full time farmer. We are counting on making up that salary that he transitioned out of in March by being very intentional about planting things that already have a home.”

While still in Pikeville, Cathy started growing produce for The Blue Raven, a restaurant in Pikeville that supports local farmers by purchasing directly from them. “Matt (the owner of The Blue Raven and its sister restaurant Sliced) featured our produce on his menu. When we moved to the farm, he wanted to continue using our stuff. He wanted to use our tomatoes and basil for a Four Petal Farm Pizza at Sliced. I said we can do that. He wanted summer squash as a side for the Raven. I said we can do that.”

She told me that too often folks new to growing food to sell get it backwards. They plant and then try to figure out where to sell it. “We focus on growing stuff in the summer that has a destination already. Farmers markets are great but they cannot be the only thing to make farming a viable income for people, to make a living out of.”

As our time together drew to a close, I asked Cathy where the farm name, Four Petal Farm, came from. “Well, she said, there are three things. We are known for our winter gardening which is primarily vegetables from the brassica family—broccoli, cabbage, turnips, radishes—and brassica flowers have four petals. But we are also growing year round now in all four seasons. And there are four of us in our family. So the Four Petals are very symbolic.”

To learn more about all season gardening, Four Petal Farm and Cathy in general visit her blog, Mother of a Hubbard.

Breaking Beans: Appalachian Food Story Project is an initiative of Community Farm Alliance to tell the story of how local food and farming in Eastern Kentucky can contribute to a bright future in the mountains. Read the stories at cfaky.org/blog

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Inch by Inch at The David School

October 19, 2016 CFA Admin

by Sister Kathy Curtis

Nestled in the steep valley between Floyd and Magoffin Counties is the former coal town of David, home of The David School, a high school for teenagers who have found it difficult to succeed in a traditional school setting. Founded in 1972, The David School has a long history of unique and varied service learning programs including running its own gas station in the small town. The school’s founders believed that a well-rounded curriculum should include hands on practice in real world skills. In its third year, the Inch by Inch Garden Project is one of the service learning focuses at the school.

The Inch by Inch Garden Project is a multi-faceted educational program that incorporates the garden into the school’s academic program. In addition to lessons involved in the actual growing of plants, each core academic teacher has created eight garden-related lessons in their focus, two for each quarter.

“We have quite a full binder of lessons now” then-project director Jann Knappage told me. The entire student body is impacted by the Inch By Inch project whether they get their hands dirty or not. Of course the organically grown produce is served in school lunches but the garden project also teaches business and life skills in the garden itself and in academic classes like math and science.

“I have noticed that this year the students have taken more pride in the garden” Knappage remarked, “especially since it has grown so much.”

Starting out as a sand volleyball court and four small raised beds, the Inch By Inch garden has taken root and grown both literally and figuratively. The first year of the project saw the addition of two 20’ by 40’ high tunnels. This year the project added a greenhouse, chicken coop, irrigation system, and outdoor classroom – almost all built by students and staff with skills learned in wood shop, beginning building, and engineering classes.

The school uses the produce grown to help with the school lunch budget, as well as for income through the production and sale of value-added products, like their hot sauces. Through a program of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, Knappage and others became certified micro-processors and can now take the peppers, tomatoes, and onions grown in the school garden and turn them into delicious hot sauce which is sold at the school and at the Floyd County Farmers Market.

The decision to make hot sauce was student-led, as was the final choice of recipes for their two sauces—Falcon Inferno, named after the school mascot, and the milder Southeast Heat, named for the region of Kentucky where the school is located. In addition to hot sauce, the students also produce items from the school’s woodshop that are also for sale at the school and the farmers’ market.

I asked Knappage how she was able to run a school garden program over the summer – the optimal time to grow most vegetable crops, but also when most schools are deserted.

“The David School is a Grow Appalachia site and they have been very generous in providing the funds to pay for three summer student interns. And our school’s Board members raised the money for a fourth student. The students work four-hour days, Tuesday through Saturday, which includes a stint manning the farmers’ market table,” said Knappage.

I mentioned to Knappage that her summer interns for the last two years had been male and she acknowledged that the guys seemed more open the outdoor work. She pointed out, however, that in its second year of classes, the Inch By Inch project had an equal ratio of male to female students in the service learning classes.

“The girls really excelled in the designing and marketing for our spring plant sale. And they are more adept at the more intricate tasks like transplanting seedling and painting herb pots for the sale,” Knappage shared.

I had an opportunity to visit the seventh period service learning classes two weeks before school let out this summer to meet some of the students. While half of the class of eight had never had a home garden, two of the students, Jerry Patton and Cody Watkins, told me they grew and sold produce from their home gardens. All of the students said they enjoyed having food they had grown in their school lunches and most of them had discovered new veggies that they liked—red cabbage, zucchini and yellow squash were some mentioned.

They all liked working on the plant sale fundraiser, in which the entire student body took part in growing, packaging, advertising, and selling potted flowers and herbs and vegetable starts. One student, Jonica Cooke, didn’t want to sell the plants she had worked so hard to grow because she was afraid that the people who bought them wouldn’t care for them as much as the students did.

Jonica said, “I used to get stuff that people grew and made and I didn’t take care of it. But now I know all the hard work that goes in to growing something.”

I enjoyed my visit with the Inch by Inch students and the tour of their great garden. I found both brimming with life. I especially appreciated what student Coty Moore told me about his experience working on the project: “I used to think that gardening was pretty useless. But now I think that when you plant a garden you believe in tomorrow.”

After my visit to the David School’s Inch by Inch garden, I have to agree with Coty: I’m thinking tomorrow is growing pretty good.

(Note: Since this article was written, Jann Knappage has taken a position with Community Farm Alliance as the Eastern Kentucky Farm to Table Coordinator!)

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HF Farms – Our Roots Run Deep (PART II)

September 18, 2015 CFA Admin

by Sister Kathy Curtis

[This is Part Two of a three part series. Part One]

In the summer of 2010 Todd Howard of HF Farms sold produce at a farmers’ market sponsored by the City of Prestonburg. One of many people in eastern Kentucky laid off during the coal industry slump, Howard had turned his family garden into a greenhouse and farming enterprise with his business partner, David Fryman. That first year went well selling out every week.

Their second year, however, was not so great. Due in part to a change in location, business was terrible.

“I was done. We had no help. Nobody was listening,” said Howard.

Then Howard reconnected with Martin Richards of Community Farm Alliance whom he had met that spring at the Growing Appalachia Conference. Richards told him about the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SSAWG) Conference being held that year in Little Rock, Arkansas.

“So,” Howard said, “I applied for a scholarship and got it.”

The conference “was an Ah-ha! moment” for Howard. He heard from people in Mississippi and rural Georgia who were farming in areas with similar economic demographics as eastern Kentucky – and making a living. Howard came back to Floyd County motivated and inspired.

At that same time Sister Kathleen Weigand of St. Vincent Mission held a town hall meeting focused on using agriculture as an economic incubator.

“It usually takes years for things to percolate to eastern Kentucky but here were a bunch of people excited to support local foods – people wanted to volunteer to take it to the next level.”

That year, 2012, the Floyd County Farmers’ Market with seven anchor vendors, civic and private sponsors, and lots of volunteers grossed $23,000 and it continues to grow.

“Local folks helping one another; I think that’s the key to success,” said Howard.

Howard is one of several people here in the region who thinks that one of eastern Kentucky’s biggest problems is that “We look to the outside to fix everything. If we can’t come together in our own neighborhoods, Frankfort, the Feds, they’re not going to help us.”

Howard and his wife recently made a list of all the people who they have been talking to about earning some income through agriculture.

Howard said, “Within a ten mile radius we came up with twenty people. Whether it’s pigs, chickens, planting a third of an acre to make a little extra cash, they all want to know, can you help me? Nobody’s gonna get rich but if you can make $1000 in twelve weeks, why not?”

These days Howard is branching out.

“The farmers’ market is a great place to start. It is critical to have that entry level place to cut your teeth,” explains Howard. But it has its drawbacks. Howard has three children who play ball and have other activities that take place on Saturday afternoons. Saturday is also a time when friends and family come help on the farm to get those labor-intensive chores, including harvesting for the community supported agriculture (CSA) shares, done.

The CSA model seems to be working. Howard said, “Last year was our first attempt at running a CSA. We sold about twelve shares for thirteen weeks. This year we are expanding to 30 members for 16 weeks. We are also looking to expand into institutional markets and restaurants.” Is this another Field of Dreams?

In part three Howard discusses the obstacles he must overcome and the allies he is developing in his effort to show agriculture is a viable option for economic development in eastern Kentucky.

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HF Farms – Our Roots Run Deep (PART I)

September 11, 2015 CFA Admin

by Sister Kathy Curtis

[This is Part One of a three part series]

Shortly after the Revolutionary war, three brothers named Howard were given a land grant of several thousand acres in what is now south Magoffin County, Kentucky. “My dad still owns some of the original property. In fact, most of the original land grant is still in the heirs” said Floyd County farmer Todd Howard in a recent interview. “When people saw a Howard coming across the hill on horseback they’d say, ‘them Howards don’t get out of the holler much and when they do, watch out.’”

One day, Howard’s papaw, Tilden, rode his horse over the ridge into Floyd County and down what they called Brush Creek to the Old Regular Baptist Church where he met his wife-to-be, Effie Hicks, staying in Floyd County.

Howard says, “We are the third generation on this property in Hippo,” property that is now HF Farm and one of the several areas where Howard grows produce.

Howard denies being the first farmer in his family, explaining, “If anything, I am doing what we’ve probably known for a longtime. Being here in Appalachia, in a rural area, if you trace your roots back you’ll find you’ve had to live off the land, you’ve had to get dirt under your fingernails and understand what it’s like to take a seed and provide some sort of means for your family.”

He wasn’t always a farmer though. When he and his wife Vylinda were expecting their first child, he worked in the coal industry for his father’s engineering firm. “We were living in a five hundred square foot house with one closet. It was so small; you couldn’t walk through the kitchen with the oven door open.” They moved down the hill to the “old house” where there was more room, more closets and about a third of an acre of grass to cut.

“I hated cutting grass so we decided to put in a garden because it would be a whole lot easier.” The family had had a garden there before and even had peanuts down by the creek. The first year went pretty well and they grew a lot to eat and put up. All was well.

January 2010, David Fryman, a relative of Howard’s got his hands on a greenhouse and they decided raising plants to sell would be easy. “You put a seed in a container; add some water and a little fertilizer and people will buy ‘em.” So they grew about 8,000 plants but only sold about 1,000 of them.

That April, Howard was laid off. He and Fryman decided to plant the several thousand plant starts they had left and soon had tomatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers and sweet corn planted with no idea how they were going to sell it all.

“We had the ‘Field of Dreams’ mentality. We figured that when people were heading out to the box stores to buy sweet corn they would get it in their heads to drive up Route 850 and buy their corn from us. We planted, but they didn’t come,” Howard said.

Then fate smiled in their direction when they found out the City of Prestonsburg was looking for fifteen to twenty vendors to start a farmers’ market. On opening day, Howard and Fryman were joined by Bev May who Howard had met at the Growing Appalachia conference that spring. Together, the three of them sold produce in a downtown parking lot. “It wasn’t too bad and we sold out every day.”

Howard was now (perhaps unintentionally) in the farming business. But the question is: Can a person earn a living farming in eastern Kentucky? We will answer that question in part two of this series.